Lip Balm Recipes – Victorian And Edwardian Beauty Routine And Recipes

Red lips together with rosy cheeks and dark eyes were fashionable in the Victorian and Edwardian era. So in this part of my Victorian And Edwardian Beauty Routine And Recipes series I’m sharing with you eleven natural tinted and white lip salve recipes from the 1800s, 1830s, 1870s, 1880s and 1910s.

[Some of the lip salve recipes ask for spermaceti, a wax from the sperm whale, which can be replaced with jojoba oil or a mixture of coconut oil and jojoba oil.

Pure glycerin tends to coarsen the skin and dull ‘the colour of the lips’. Better is this lip salve.

2 oz almond oil

1/2 oz spermaceti

1/2 oz white wax

1/2 oz alkanet root

Melt waxes and oil. ‘Add the alkanet root, and stir till the whole is rose-tinted’, then strain.

In Victorian times a ‘tiny little rosebud’ was the perfect mouth shape, but in the Edwardian era the mouth has to be ‘like a Bow Unbent’ (Every Woman’s Encyclopaedia, 1910-2). ‘Most woman make too much use of their mouths – speaking strictly from a beauty-culture point of view – and the muscles become overworked and old, prematurely.’

The lips should be like ‘strawberries in cream’ – so white skin and moderately red lips are fashionable. ‘There is a fashion of painting the lips in a vivid hue that outrivals Nature. Exaggeration invariably kills beauty’ (Every Woman’s Encyclopaedia, 1910-2). Store-bought lip salves are often harmful. Don’t bite your lips, rather ‘try the simple little plan of sucking a cayenne lozenge for a few moments’, or make a homemade lip salve.

Melt oil, wax, virgin rice and alkanet together ‘over a slow fire […] Keep stirring till cold, and then add a few drops of the oil of rhodium.’ Fresh butter may be used instead of almond oil. ‘Yellow beeswax added, will give it a yellow colour. […] Instead of the oil of sweet almonds [and the oil of rhodium], you may use oil of jasmin, or oil of any other flower, if you intend the lip-salve to have a fragrant odour.’

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Hi, I’m Lina. I’m interested in historical fashion, I’m a DIY’er, I like to sew and try out new things. On this blog, I’m sharing free sewing, refashion and natural makeup tutorials with you, and write about costumes I’ve created.

Count down the days until Christmas with my Advent calendar. Each day from December 1 to December 24, a new Christmas craft tutorial, a Christmas recipe or a post about Victorian Christmas customs awaits you on my blog.

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